12
“How do you know my name?”
Bishop winced a little. Felice Carter was shouting and didn’t even realize it. Hearing damage from the explosion, he decided. Nothing permanent.
“I was sent to get you out,” he said. It was a lie, though more an omission than an outright falsehood, and given the circumstances, a full explanation wouldn’t have made much difference. “I’m sorry we didn’t get here sooner.”
He had not been sent to get her specifically. He hadn’t even known the names of the people he’d been sent to rescue. Domenick Boucher hadn’t provided much more than a general location for what he described as ‘a science expedition researching some kind of renewable energy project.’ As they had flown over the area aboard Crescent II—Chess Team’s dedicated supersonic stealth transport plane — they’d spied the attack already underway. At that point, more information about the individuals under fire wouldn’t have made much difference to the outcome. He and Knight had HALO jumped from 25,000 feet — high enough that no one on the ground had even heard the plane passing overhead — but the only clear drop zone had been the shallows of Lake Kivu, which necessitated a damp hike through very unfamiliar terrain to reach the camp.
Bishop had assumed they would be Congolese nationals, but Felice Carter was an American. He had been able to make the almost instantaneous identification thanks to the facial recognition software in his glasses. There hadn’t been time for him to fully process all the accompanying information, but two words had jumped out at him.
Geneticist.
Manifold.
Felice Carter had once worked for Richard Ridley, the man who had injected Bishop with the regen serum, sending him on a hellish journey to the edge of madness and back.
He shut this information away in a distant corner of his mind. Her association with Manifold did not automatically make her a villain. Anna Beck, Knight’s girlfriend and currently chief of operations for the Endgame organization, had also once worked for Ridley. Moreover, there was enough additional information about Felice — something involving King and the Brainstorm crisis — for him to recognize that her work for Ridley was only a small sliver of her life story.
Doesn’t matter, he thought. My mission is to save her, not judge her.
“We?” she asked after a moment. “You’re not alone?”
“I brought a friend. Can you walk? We need to get out of here. The rebels will be back.”
She tried to rise, reaching out to use Bishop for leverage. He remained there, kneeling to provide support, until she succeeded. He stayed there a moment longer, looking up at her, checking her for any signs of injury.
Where her coffee-colored skin was exposed — her forearms and face — there were raw abrasions too numerous to count, but all appeared superficial. Felice was tall, not quite six-foot he guessed, and she was lean and fit beneath her slightly scorched khakis and work shirt. She was attractive, too, though for Bishop this was nothing more than one more observation to be filed away. Appearances could be deceiving, and this was especially true of beautiful appearances — Queen was living proof of that.
He finally rose to his feet, towering over her once more, and turned away to let his gaze roam over the wreckage of the camp. His eyes were immediately drawn to the bodies, more than a dozen sprawled out in the open area near the burning truck. There was no sign of movement and he didn’t hold out much hope that there were other survivors, but he had to make sure.
“Stay right here,” he told her.
She nodded, but then tilted her head as if remembering something. “There’s some data in the lab tent that I should bring.”
Several of the tents had been knocked flat, and some were burning. Even those that still stood, furthest out from where the truck had exploded, were shot full of holes. “Which one?”
She pointed down the row, and then started moving in that direction, as if he had given her permission. Bishop frowned. He had been hoping to spare her the sight of her dead colleagues, but there was no turning her back now. Fortunately, she seemed to have developed a kind of tunnel vision, which Bishop knew often happened to people in a crisis. She passed so close to one corpse that she almost stepped on a hand, but she didn’t seem to notice. The tent she sought had partially collapsed, but she threw back the flap and went inside as if nothing at all was wrong. Bishop just shook his head and turned back to surveying the camp.
“Deep Blue, this is Bishop.” He didn’t actually need to identify himself. The q-phones rendered traditional radio protocols completely obsolete, but old habits died hard. “We’re going to need extraction here, ASAP.”
“Understood,” Deep Blue replied. He didn’t ask about whether or not they had succeeded in rescuing the science team. Deep Blue was able to see everything and already knew the situation. “How secure is that location?”
“Not very. We got five of them.” Knight had taken out the three in the camp with his Intervention sniper rifle. Bishop had found two more hanging back at the edge of the camp and dispatched them without a shot. “But there were several more that retreated. My guess is, they’ll be back with more friends.”
“Crescent is dropping off King and Pawn in Kinshasa right now. It can be back at your location in one hour.”
Bishop thought that estimate was a bit optimistic. Kinshasa was more than 900 miles away, but Crescent could manage Mach Two if the pilots didn’t care about burning up all the fuel, so it was possible. “Roger. We’ll try to establish a secure LZ. Bishop, out.”
The sign-off was another ingrained and totally unnecessary response. Deep Blue would continue to monitor everything he and Knight said and did, and would respond to them as easily as if he was standing there with them.
Felice emerged from the tent a moment later, now carrying a black backpack. “Got it.”
She stopped in her tracks, as if being in the lab tent had magically transported her away from everything that had happened, and coming out had snapped her back into the moment. Bishop interposed himself between her and the carnage, drawing her gaze to his face. In an attempt to look a little more human, he removed his boonie hat with its adornment of fern stalks and other jungle flora, and gave her a reassuring nod. “Our ride will be here soon. Let’s find a nice safe place to settle down and wait.”
She nodded and made no effort to look around him, as he guided her back to the south end of the camp, where she had hidden earlier. He found a folding camp chair that had somehow come through the attack unscathed, and gestured for her to sit. “Now, one more time. Stay put, okay?”
Another nod.
Bishop straightened and did another 360 degree sweep of the camp. He had to do a double-take when he saw a chess piece icon floating above what looked like a pile of leaves, just ten yards away. Knight had entered the camp without making a sound, and his ghillie suit — an over-garment made from strips of camouflage netting and burlap — rendered him virtually invisible, even when standing right next to him.
“Sneaky,” Bishop remarked.
Knight grinned up at him. “You make it sound like a bad thing.”
“I’m just jealous.” Bishop gestured to the camp. “We’d better do a sweep and then dig in. Could be a while before our ride shows up.”
“I heard.” Knight rose from his prone firing position and slung his perfectly camouflaged rifle across his back. He surveyed the wreckage and in a grim voice, added, “I don’t think there’s much left to sweep.”